Be My Banshee (Purple Door Detective Agency Book 1) Read online

  Be My Banshee

  A Purple Door Detective Agency Novel

  By

  Joyce and Jim Lavene

  Copyright © 2015 Joyce and Jim Lavene

  Book coach and editor—Jeni Chappelle

  http://www.jenichappelle.com/

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Be My Banshee

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  About the Authors

  The Purple Door Detective Agency is hiring.

  Those without magic need not apply.

  Salary commensurate with experience.

  Apply at the agency on Brooke Street. No phone calls or psychic links.

  Chapter One

  “You’re next.” The young assistant stood beside the ragged hag. “I mean, she can see you now.” She shivered, and her nose twitched as she looked into the gaunt face.

  The hag, even thinner than the young woman watching her, rose slowly to her full height—well over six feet. Her bones and joints cracked and complained at being used.

  Her torn robe was shades of gray and black, covered with dust and mold. Her hair was long and gray with patches missing at her scalp. Her eyes, when she fixed them on the young woman, were only dark sockets. Her mouth had been open, revealing rotted teeth for the entire time she’d been waiting, close to two hours.

  “Thank ye.” She closed her mouth enough to mumble. There was a trace of Irish brogue about her sandpaper voice.

  “Y-you’re welcome.” The young woman scurried back to her desk and licked her hand before she ran it across her face. She stopped when she realized others in the waiting room were watching her. At that point, she gulped hard and went to hide in the supply closet.

  There were some of every kind there—werewolves, vampires, witches—and others she couldn’t identify. They sat in the pretty purple chairs while they waited for their interviews as music played softly in the background. The word had only gone out that morning that the Purple Door Detective Agency was hiring. The turnout was everything the owner of the firm could have hoped for.

  “Come in. Sit down.” Sunshine Merryweather gestured to a deep purple chair opposite her desk. She was busy sorting through shoes with a frown on her beautiful face. “Tell me what you can do for me,” she said for the tenth time that morning.

  Sunshine was plump with a ripeness of life that showed in her bright blue eyes and pink cheeks. She had a mass of strawberry blond hair that never stayed where she put it when she tried to clasp or pull it back. It truly had a life of its own.

  She was a young witch, barely seventy-five, with most of her life in front of her. She was ambitious and impatient at times. Her clothing trended toward brightly-colored retro wear that she bought in large quantities at thrift stores and sometimes wore with long, colorful capes. When it came to jewelry, more was her mantra. She loved real gemstones but wasn’t above wearing good fakes. She loved to sparkle when she walked into a room.

  The figure at the door hadn’t moved toward the chair. Sunshine finally found the matching purple pump she’d been searching for and put it on her foot as she dropped gracefully into her purple chair.

  “Do you speak?” she asked. “Not that it matters if your other abilities work for me. What can you do?”

  “It is what you can do for me that has brought me here this day, witch.” The hag’s voice was hoarse as though she hadn’t used it in a long time. When she coughed, dust came from her open mouth.

  “I see.” Sunshine tapped her sparkling, purple pen against her desk. “Maybe you should wait outside until the interview process is over. We’re only at partial strength with the death of our associate. That’s why we’re having this cattle call this morning, Miss—?”

  “Aine. My name is Aine. I am come from Ireland this very day. I am in need of your assistance, or you should find me a formidable enemy. Do not think to press me or waste my time.”

  Sunshine smiled, staring at the hag with eyes that saw everything but gave away nothing. She was powerful and could be ruthless if the need arose. She rarely bent herself to that sort of passion, but intuition told her the ancient woman in front of her might be enough to drive her to the edge.

  Her lover, and the man who’d helped her start the Purple Door Detective Agency, had been brutally slaughtered three days before during a full moon. The moon phase was important to the matter because John Lancaster was a werewolf who was at the height of his power on that night. Nothing should have been able to rip him to pieces, which was how they’d found him. She wanted nothing less than extreme vengeance. But first she had to find the culprit, and that had proved annoyingly difficult.

  “Look. I appreciate that you’ve come a long way—is that Aine? Does that rhyme with pain?” she finally said to the hag.

  “No, witch. You might say it as Ann.”

  “But I’m really busy today,” Sunshine continued. “Come back tomorrow when I have a new associate, and we’ll talk about your case. Right now, you’re in the way. There’s a very nice bed and breakfast up the street from here. You could stay there. Leave your name when you make an appointment with my assistant at the desk outside. Thanks for being so understanding.”

  The hag didn’t budge. She stood her ground, gazing at the witch with eyes that had not seen a sunrise in more than two hundred years. Her mouth slowly opened, and the most horrendous screech imaginable issued from it. Her garments seemed possessed of a life all their own as they stood out around her. Her shriek continued, rattling the windows in the old brick building. Gnarled, clawed hands reached toward the witch as the plaster on the walls cracked and nails dropped from the wood around them.

  Sunshine didn’t move or show surprise though her hair appeared as windblown as if she’d been driving her purple convertible with the top down.

  “Well. That happened.” She moved her chair close to the desk again. The hag’s shriek had actually caused furniture to shift. “You could have told me you were a banshee. That was really impressive. Maybe we have something to talk about after all.”

  “’Ware me, witch.” The hag appeared weakened now that it was over. “I am Aine, a past Queen of Ulster. I am doomed to follow the O’Neill family as their beane sidhe for my remaining time on this earth. I am stronger than you can imagine. I require your assistance and sh
all not be denied.”

  “I can see that. And I’m so sorry for saying your name incorrectly. I know how that can be. How do you say Sunshine Merryweather the wrong way? And yet people manage it.”

  She giggled, and Aine grimaced. Was she reduced to asking for help from this flirtatious trollop who had less sense than she ought?

  Yet here she was, in a strange land far from home, possibly the last of her kind. She’d fallen into a deep slumber, no doubt magic of some sort, and had awakened alone in a rotting, abandoned castle. None of the branch of the O’Neill family she served was to be found in the land of her birth. Her unerring sense of knowing where to find someone of the bloodline had led her thousands of miles, across the great ocean, to this city—Norfolk. It was in the land of Virginia.

  While she knew the remaining O’Neill was here on these black rock roads, she wasn’t able to locate him. It was possible that her long sleep had dulled her magic. But it was essential that she find him. There were secrets to whisper in his ear as she guided him to the underworld. She had also to keen before his death. If she did not do these things, her debt would not be paid and she would turn to dust when O’Neill was dead.

  Unless he had a child to pass on her legacy. Now that would be heaven, or as near to it as she would ever be.

  There was the faintest of taps at the door.

  “Come in,” Sunshine called.

  No one entered.

  She sighed and got to her feet, walking around Aine, to open the door. She looked down. A small, white mouse was chattering at her. Its tiny paws were held tightly against its white chest.

  “Yes, I know, Jane. I’ll speak to him. For goodness sake, pull yourself together. We have a whole room full of potential employees—not to mention possible customers.”

  The mouse nodded nervously and slowly became the young woman who’d ushered Aine into the office.

  “That’s much better. Thank you very much.” Sunshine glanced at Aine. “Would you like some tea or coffee? I can tell you’re parched, excuse the humor. Jane will get you anything you want. Jane Smith, Aine of Ulster. She’s a banshee—but be careful—she’s sensitive about it.”

  Jane gulped as she was left with Aine in Sunshine’s large office. “W-would you like some tea?”

  “I’m not here for tea, little mouse. Scurry away now.”

  Sunshine allowed the women to fend for themselves as she crossed the office to speak with another associate, Mr. Bad. She ignored the hopeful looks of potential employees, opened the door, and stepped into his office.

  “I’m sorry. I need to speak to you. Who would’ve guessed a banshee would turn up? Not that she wouldn’t make a great addition to the team. I didn’t know banshees were still around. I mean, I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never met one or known anyone who has, have you?”

  The room was completely dark. But she knew her partner was seated behind his huge, old desk. There was one large window in the office. It was heavily draped with thick black cotton. Not so much as a sliver of sunlight made it through that opening. There were no sounds either. Noise and light bothered Mr. Bad.

  “Stop blathering.” Mr. Bad’s voice wheezed. “Why is she here?”

  “Something about looking for someone named O’Neill. Probably from the family she haunts. She can’t find him and wants our help.”

  “She does not seek employment?”

  “No. And it’s probably just as well. I know banshees are strong, but I could see from her tantrum that they can also be destructive.”

  “Talk her around, Miss Merryweather. We could use a force like her.”

  Sunshine abruptly stopped pacing the floor.

  Mr. Bad never came out of his office or interfered in the daily business operations. Many times she’d asked him for his opinion and had received the barest grunt in reply.

  She wasn’t even sure what he looked like in the light. One morning she’d come down to work and there he’d been in the side office. No explanation or asking if she had a vacancy.

  He’d talked to John. Sunshine’s partner had come out of the office with a look that wavered between fear and awe. “He has to stay, Sunny,” John had said. “I-I can’t explain except that he has to stay.”

  And so Mr. Bad—their name for him, not his—had stayed in that office. He paid rent on it the first of every month with cash on Jane’s desk. Occasionally he shared some words of wisdom with John or the all-knowing grunt with Sunshine.

  Until now. This time he actually had something to say even though she wasn’t sure that she agreed with it.

  Sunshine’s temper got the better of her. “Why her? Because her voice can shake a house to the ground? Is it her charm and beauty? You never have anything to say about anything. Why now?”

  “I can feel her presence from here,” he wheezed. “She is of the fae, one of the oldest of races. The children of the goddess. It is not only her voice that has strength, my dear Miss Merryweather. Find a way to hire her. Make sure the contract is properly binding.”

  “Binding? The only people who work for me want to be here. You said yourself that she’s a force to be reckoned with. Why would I pit my witchcraft against her magic?”

  His breath rasped in his throat. “Do it. Or you will regret it. As you say, I don’t interfere, but I make an exception in this case. Find a way to keep the beane sidhe with us.”

  Sunshine started to argue. She didn’t like being told what to do. But she had always known Mr. Bad had an understanding of the world that she lacked. Whether it was magic, or some older force of nature, she had never witnessed his anger and never wished to.

  “All right. I’ll take care of it. But I hope you’re ready to step in if she gets out of hand.”

  “Treat her with the respect she is due and nothing will happen.”

  The conversation was over. His slow creaking movement, turning away from her in his chair, was enough to tell her so. Sunshine left his office, walking through the waiting room of potential employees.

  Who Mr. Bad was, and what his powers were, had never come up in conversation. He’d been good counsel to John in bad times and had helped ‘arrange’ certain matters that were outside their capabilities. He’d never confided in her or told her how he’d come to be there. John had refused to ask.

  Now he believed the banshee should take John’s place at the agency. She swallowed hard, at least temporarily agreeing with his ideas on the situation.

  “I’m sorry,” Sunshine told the crowd. “The position has been filled. If any of you are interested in hiring the agency to work for you, please stay behind, and I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

  “Wait!” A man called out, struggling from his chair. “I can do amazing things! You should hire me.”

  As she watched, the man stretched his arms toward the ceiling, grasping the chandelier, and swinging from one side of the room to the other. He lost his grip and dropped abruptly to the carpet, groaning and turning his head from side to side.

  “Thank you so much. Leave your card. We’ll let you know the next time we’re hiring.”

  Chapter Two

  Sunshine was glad to see that Aine had finally sat in the purple chair. Jane had even convinced her to drink some tea. Did banshees eat? She was going to have to learn what she could about her new employee.

  “That was Mr. Bad, another partner in the agency.” Sunshine explained about him as she gathered her energy. When she opened the drawer in her desk, there was a contract there. “He’s concerned about us looking for Mr. O’Neill. He’d like you to sign this contract basically saying that we aren’t responsible for any physical damage that’s done by you while you’re working for us.”

  Aine put down the tea cup. She hadn’t tasted the flowery-smelling brew. She couldn’t remember the last time water had crossed her lips.

  “I’ll not sign a thing. You do what you have to and find the remaining O’Neill.”

  “I don’t think you understand how things work today.” Sunshine took a se
at behind her desk but kept a vigilant eye on the other woman. “No one does anything without a contract. We barely eat or sleep without one. It’s the way of the world. Mr. Bad says we need you to sign this. I can’t do any magic until you do.”

  Jane had been quietly waiting behind Aine. When she heard the blatant lie, she hurried from the room in case the banshee decided to screech. She’d never heard anything like it before—and never wanted to again. It had awakened all the primal fears she tried to hide every day as a human. As a mouse, her life had been filled with terrors. Just the closing of a door was enough to drive her into hiding.

  Aine eyed the paper in front of her. She couldn’t read anything of the odd language on it. She didn’t understand what trickery the witch was attempting, but there was little the twit could do to her. She finally picked up the writing device that was put before her and signed her name.

  As soon as it was on the contract, the paper immediately went up in flames and vanished in the air.

  “What wizardry is this?” Aine asked her. “Don’t hope to best me in a battle of wits or power. That contract is as binding for you as it is for me.”

  “I wish you’d learned to trust me.” Sunshine held her pretty eyes wide as her curls stirred around her face. “I swear I mean you no harm. I will help you find the man you’re looking for. There’s just a small matter of you helping me find my associate’s killer.”

  “What?” Aine rose halfway from the chair, her bony hands on the desk, legs creaking under her weight. “I have agreed to nothing that will help you, witch. Do your craft. Find O’Neill.”

  “You know, if we’re going to be friends, you should start by calling me Sunshine. Or Sunny. Some of my closest friends call me Sunny. But something about the way you say ‘witch’ sounds derogatory to me. You may not realize it, but witches have been persecuted in the past. We like to stay away from that kind of thing now.”

  “Ye mean burned alive, don’t ye?” Aine chuckled, not a pleasant sound. “Yes. I know. I can understand why you’re so sensitive.”